All He Ever Wanted
by veiledndarkness
Summary: One night, just one night. Tim/Lyla pairing.


Title: All He Ever Wanted

Author: veiledndarkness

Pairing: Tim/Lyla

Rating: PG-13

Summary: One night, just one night.

Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit made, no harm intended.

xx

It's in the middle of a torrential downpour, a night when few people dare to leave their homes; it's there that she sees him by the side of the road. It's as if she's seen a ghost, a memory from so many years before. She slows her car and stares, her heart thudding against her ribcage.

He's hunched over, rain soaked hair hanging in his face, his arms tightly crossed over his chest. She shivers from inside the warmth of her car, her eyes wide. He lifts his head, looking up to see the stranger who's stopped their car for him. He stares back at her, a drawn out silence that hangs in the air.

She thinks of the millions of questions flying through her mind and yet the only words that leave her are ones that bring him closer to the passenger side door. He smiles, a faint strained smile and slips into the car.

They drive in silence, neither willing to be the first to ask why or how. She drives carefully, her gaze flitting over to him every few minutes. He looks out of place in her car, dripping water over the leather upholstery. She passes the city limits signs, far from Dillon, far from the world they both left behind.

He tucks the wet strands of straggly hair back behind his ears, keenly aware of her curious glances. He says nothing, his own heart pounding hard. He's never been more achingly aware of his faults than when she is near him and now, now he just wants to blurt it all out again, tell her everything he ever thought or wanted, everything she represented for him and he hates himself for staying silent as the miles tick by.

The tension grows and the silence chokes them within the luxury car, a gift from her father. When she pulls into the motel parking lot, it's with a certain understanding, one he knows well. She looks at him and then away, a need in her eyes. He follows behind her as she pays for a room. He imagines he can see something other than desire in her eyes and for him that's enough.

In the room, the sound of the rain muted against the windows, she stands before him, her delicate fingers tracing his cheek, her thumb brushing along his cheekbone. He kisses her hand, a thrill racing through each of them.

He takes her in his arms, no words passing her lips and he tucks her under his chin, his mouth forming her name as he lowers them to the bed. She closes her eyes as he strips them both, her body pressed to his, and this, yes, she remembers this, how could she ever let the memory fade…

As the morning light seeps into the room, he awakes to find nothing more than rumpled sheets beside him, no trace of her. He sighs, ignoring the dull pang in his chest as he dresses. It's when he's slipping his boots on that he sees the slip of paper on the bedside table, folded neatly next to the rotary phone. He reads it, re-reads it again and then folds it, slipping the paper into his wallet for safekeeping.

xx

Its two years before he sees her again, he's in town, visiting his brother and the sad-faced woman that he married some years before. He spots her as he walks out of the toy store, a package of batteries in his hand, the remote control toy for his nephew in the other.

She nearly freezes when she sees him, her knuckles gripping the stroller handles, a pretty little girl securely buckled in. He looks to her and sees everything that she wants to say, sees the wedding ring on her finger, the look of fear on her face. He looks down to the small child and sees his own eyes peering up at him curiously.

He listens to her whispered pleas even as he sees the modified truck in the parking lot, the sign in the windshield, the handicapped parking space. He looks to the child again, his child, their child and it's as if he can't breathe, can't speak, the depth of what's happened, of what they did slamming home anew.

She tells him, pleads with him to understand why, how this small thing, such a simple act was the one thing that _**he**_ could never give her. Her eyes beg him to forgive her.

He crouches down and touches the toddler's cheek, a small sound of misery slipping from him when the little girl coos at him, her light brown hair swept back in dainty pigtails.

It's too much and he backs away. She wipes a tear from her cheek, whispering the words he's longed to hear since he was a young child. He echoes the words back and turns away, leaving her and their child. As he walks away, he feels the bittersweet tears prickling under his eyelids and thinks longingly of how she felt in his arms, of the times she let him be close and all he can think is how much it hurts when he holds her.

xx

Storyline loosely based on Heart's "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You"


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